GIVING A LEAD

served to introduce a criticism, none the less acute for
being wholly without harshness. "I think," the Prince
said, "this difficulty lies in the fact that as artists you
have been devoting your time to the consideration of
the abstract ideal, which is good in itself when you are
considering only the individual client. You must give
consideration to another, a greater and more important,
ideal, designed and working for the great majority of
our people, instead of studying the needs of the minority,
which is ever dwindling."

Next was introduced the note of personal appeal,
which the Prince knew so well how to sound, varying
its pitch, quality and stress according to the composition
of his audience. He reminded this company of architects
of his great concern for the masses of British people
and for the improvement of their conditions of living.
He told them that his visits to the distressed areas and
the slums of great cities had impressed on him the
absolute and urgent necessity for drastic demolition and
rebuilding. He blamed the architects and builders of
the nineteenth century for giving so little consideration
to the housing of the great industrial groups. Those
of the present day were presented with an opportunity.
As a further development of his theme the Prince
suggested that the opportunity should be extended "to
the schools and buildings in which the masses are
reared when they are children, and the hospitals in which
they are treated when they are sick."

The speech was ended in a characteristic way:
"To-day we are not the race of individualists which we
were in Victorian and Edwardian times. We are now
living—mostly because of the results of the World War
—in a world which is more collective in principle than
individualistic. Wealth is more evenly distributed
throughout the country than it has ever been, and the
interest of professional men, in common with the interest
of commercial men, is being more directed to a considera-
tion of the mass of the people and their requirements,

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